CommentaryHey Mack, can you spare a second?

Published 6:30 am, Sunday, December 6, 2009

Colt McCoy threw three interceptions, but the Longhorns managed a 13-12 win over Nebraska.

Colt McCoy threw three interceptions, but the Longhorns managed a 13-12 win over Nebraska.

Photo: Ronald Martinez, Getty Images

Justice: Longhorns prove themselves worthy of title

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ARLINGTON — This is the one they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. This was magic and luck and more magic.

It ended with a wild, stunning celebration, with a moment of amazement and joy and tears and laughter. The Texas championship dream lives on, but just barely.

“Sometimes you have to dig way down deep as a team and find a way to win,’’ Colt McCoy said.

Texas and Nebraska slugged it out for 60 minutes, and Texas got pushed hard, pushed against the ropes, staggered and dazed and was seemingly finished.

Texas actually was finished. You can look it up. There was a bizarre moment when a McCoy pass fell incomplete and the clock wound down to 0:00 and Nebraska players and coaches sprinted onto the field to celebrate what they thought was a 12-10 victory in the Big 12 Championship Game.

Had the game ended then and there, Mack Brown and McCoy would be explaining a mistake that would follow them forever. Texas didn’t just let the clock run out. Texas let the clock run out without using its last timeout.

“I wasn’t worried about the clock,’’ McCoy said. “I figured we’d have one or two seconds left.’’

Way to cut it close, Colt.

As Nebraska celebrated, as Texas players stood there trying to comprehend what happened, Texas caught a break.

Replay officials decided to put one second back on the clock, and Texas rushed Hunter Lawrence onto the field for the 46-yard field goal that won it, 13-12.

All about the ‘W’

Winning ugly is still winning. Texas is 13-0. If you’re thinking Texas had no business winning, you’re dead wrong. Texas found a way to win, and in the end, that’s all that matters.

“We’ll see you in Pasadena,’’ Brown told the Texas fans who stayed around to celebrate and perhaps to digest what they’d seen.

Good thing he got that part about going to Pasadena out of the way because there might be some doubt, especially among TCU fans. Yet Texas almost certainly did enough to play for its second national championship in five years.

In a season when things came easy for the Longhorns, this one was brutally tough. Nebraska beat up McCoy badly. Sacked him nine times. Intercepted him three times.

Nebraska did exactly what Texas A&M did. Nebraska blitzed McCoy from the first moment until the last, and the Texas offensive line was exposed as the team’s weakest link.

McCoy still played better than his 184 yards and no passing touchdowns will look. One interception was tipped. Another was ripped out of a receiver’s hands. A touchdown pass was dropped.

With the game on the line, McCoy twice drove Texas into position to win, and at the end, he caught a break.

‘One at a time’

Texas appeared to have run out of luck when Alex Henery’s 42-yard field goal with 1:44 left gave Nebraska a 12-10 lead.

Texas was beaten. Texas had to burn two timeouts just to keep Nebraska from running the clock to zero.

“I walked in the huddle and told the offensive line it’s one at a time,’’ McCoy said. “Let’s make it happen. Let’s find a way. Games likes this are the ones that mean the most when you look back on it.’’

Texas probably couldn’t have won if Nebraska hadn’t come undone, but Nebraska did. There was a kickoff out of bounds and a stupid personal foul. McCoy hit Jordan Shipley for 19 yards, and then came the moment when it looked like the clock had run out.

Then it was the Longhorns’ turn to celebrate, and celebrate they did, crazily and madly. This 13-0 season was partly the result of last season, when Brown never let his players forget the feeling of pain and disappointment.

Texas lost to Texas Tech in the last second, and that second cost Texas a shot at the national championship. One season’s pain became another season’s motivation. When you unwrap this remarkable Texas season, this is where you start.

The Longhorns have lost once in the last 743 days, but that loss eats at Brown and his players to this day. Texas blinked just once last season, and that one loss — a last-second defeat against Texas Tech — cost the Horns a chance to play for the national championship.

As bizarre as it gets

Years from now, this game will be remembered as nothing more than another brick in the wall. But to the players on both teams, to the coaches and to the fans, it will be maybe the most bizarre game they’d ever seen.

Texas kept it going. In the end, that’s all that matters to the Longhorns.